How Patti Smith and Politics Came to a Head at Newport Folk

The Fender Stratocaster may be the weapon of Patti Smith's generation, but it very well could be the secret weapon of pivotal change in 2016.

At this year's Newport Folk Festival, Smith closed her set by hoisting the guitar as high as she could and invoked the spirit of the '60s—or, specifically, 1965—with a full-speed-ahead cover of The Who's "My Generation." In New York City three nights before, Smith ended her performance with the same call to action, and the repetition bolstered her words. "THIS IS THE WEAPON OF MY GENERATION!" she bellowed, her knuckles white at the guitar's maple neck, the knuckles of her resolve yielding to the ferocity of her furrowed brow, her clenched fist, her roaring mouth. "THIS IS THE ONLY FUCKING WEAPON WE NEED. DON'T. GIVE. UP. LOVE ONE ANOTHER, MOTHERFUCKERS!" She strummed the Strat; one string snapped and flew free, its sterling sheen identical to that of the strands of her hair. "THESE ARE THE CHIMES OF FREEDOM. THE GREATEST REVOLUTION IN THE HISTORY OF MAN: WE CAN DO THAT."

"THIS IS THE WEAPON OF MY GENERATION!" Patti Smith bellowed.

On paper, Smith's remarks fit the mold for the rock and roll script in their directness and simplicity; this message wasn't new, nor was it off-the-mark, as the 40 years she's spent onstage have carried these decrees without compromise no matter the size of the crowd, the room she was playing or the looming November before her. As Newport Folk has proven with every passing year, "new" is a construct—a condition, a fleeting state—as far as popular music is concerned, and the staying power of spirit and taste is prized over the dictates of trend on the festival's hallowed ground. Smith's decree, then, was as much a political act as it was a poignant one tailor-made for her surroundings.

At Newport Folk, her words were enough to channel fury into the licking flames of an optimistic blaze, a bonfire of hope the listening public so desperately needs when the last match to light it had seemingly been struck. That she played the Strat (the same guitar Bob Dylan infamously plugged in at that same festival 51 years before her) and opened with a perfect tribute of "Boots of Spanish Leather" only dug her anchor deeper into the sands of Newport Folk's legacy. This is the festival where Dylan went electric, where Johnny Cash famously flipped the bird to the photographers, where James Taylor's performance was interrupted by the Moon Landing broadcast, where Jack White sang "Goodnight Irene" and wept, sure. But it is now the festival where Patti Smith stared down a fort full of people and demanded that they do right by the fighters of her generation to honor that legacy, and that thread—that live wire with revolution coursing through its very fibers—was one that desperately needed to be tied to the present in that particular moment.

Patti Smith at Newport Folk Festival

Nina Westervelt

Consider the context—the cut-it-with-a-knife tension—surrounding Smith's set. Her performance was bookended by the closing remarks of the Republican National Convention, ones that oozed with Donald Trump's hateful rhetoric and his smug acceptance of the party's presidential nomination, and the opening of the Democratic National Convention, which struck a hopeful tone thanks to the rousing remarks of Michelle Obama, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren.

As the political forefront is coming to a boil in 2016, so to is that of the music world: The mega-festival complex is collapsing thanks to market saturation, cookie-cutter headliners, overlapping lineups, and declining tickets sales. Justin Timberlake's dollop of a dance track for the Trolls movie dukes it out against Sia's Sean Paul-featuring "Cheap Thrills" remix for Song of the Summer. Kanye West and Taylor Swift continue to keep the tabloids in business thanks to "Famous," Snapchat, and the ouroboros of their seven-year feud. Rihanna is telling fans to quit playing Pokémon Go at her concerts. This is our current pop climate.

As the political forefront is coming to a boil in 2016, so to is that of the music world.

Yet alongside the headline-churn of the E! News beat and the machinations of the charts, the 2016 election and the blight of police brutality has set off the fault lines of pop, rock, and rap. Beyoncé continues to speak truth to power with deafening profundity as her Formation World Tour moves on to its European leg. Prophets of Rage left the RNC in the dust and set out on their national jaunt, which inspires to "Make America Rage Again." On the touring circuit, numerous artists have strayed from their pre-planned set lists to urge their audiences to address hatred (see Laura Jane Grace burning her birth certificate on stage in North Carolina, and Eddie Vedder's Trump takedown at Bonnaroo) and vote accordingly.

In some cases, audiences have cringed and turned away in discomfort when the performers get a little too real and force those watching the show from the screens of their iPhones to pause and reflect on the fucked-up state of the present. Before heading to Newport Folk himself, Father John Misty drew ire in Philadelphia for using his allotted stage time at WXPN's XPoNential Music Festival to react to Trump's RNC remarks and the election at large instead of playing through his songs. And while Father John Misty is known for both his penchant for the political and his propensity to speak his mind, this somehow shocked and offended the Philadelphians who had turned out to hear him sing.

Patti Smith at Newport Folk Festival

Nina Westervelt

To silence an artist in this moment—one in which Trump is wholeheartedly making xenophobic, racist, sexist and vitriolic promises to his wild-eyed pubic—or imply that they should stick to the program at a time such as this is dangerous, is the antithesis of rock and roll, is a reflex that springs up from the same place of censorship. Perhaps that's why Father John Misty was relaxed and delivered both wry commentary and an expected acoustic performance at Newport Folk, and why Smith was able to quote Ted Cruz, of all people, in earnest without getting shouted down by those gathered before her: This festival is the granddaddy of them all, and politics have played a part in its identity since the beginning, from Pete Seeger's soft and strong platitudes to Smith's own interpretation of "If I Had a Hammer" (which she masterfully followed up with a tongue-in-cheek choice of a cover of The Rolling Stones' "The Last Time").

Consider, again, the context: Smith's Fender Strat is so much more than an instrument, a conduit, a vehicle for her chords. It connects her not only to Dylan and the legacy of Newport Folk, but stresses the role that music festivals—and music, at large—can play and should play in these anxious days. In this tumultuous year, it makes sense that the season's singular performance would happen from the Newport Folk stage, and that it would come from the lips of a rocker who's made it her life's work to study the revolutionary thoughts of those who came before her in order to help lead one of her own. The Strat may be the weapon of Smith's generation, but its chords will be inherited by the next. The revolution will be televised. But it will be amplified, too.

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